I don’t know that I can convey how clear my thinking becomes eating this way. There’s a precision and depth to my thoughts that I DO NOT experience when eating cooked foods. Some might even refer to it as

Whose more "in the moment"? Kids or dogs...

spiritual. I’ll skip that label and just say raw foods are very expansive…

Addicted No More

Three weeks ago I was addicted to food, alcohol, and caffeine. No other way to call it. I was. I don’t necessarily mean in the “I better get to a 12-step meeting” kind of way. I mean how most of us are addicted to these things that should enhance our lives but for many don’t.

Having a couple beers with your friends is nice. Sitting alone and spending your insomniacal hours working on a case of beer isn’t.

A glass of wine with your pasta dinner can be a beautiful thing. Eating whole pizzas because your bored and drinking 50, 75, 100, or more drinks per WEEK…not so pretty.

The simplest, fastest, most effective way to break your food/booze/caffeine cravings is to go 100% raw with a focus on green foods. Doesn’t have to be forever, but give your body the break it deserves. You will be surprised by how effective green foods are at combating your addictions.

Transcendence

It feels kinda cool to transcend food. Best analogy I can think of is the totally in-control bartender who doesn’t drink himself…

So much of modern life can feel out of our control. And it sucks to feel like you are always letting yourself down and breaking your own promises. I gotta admit that I feel a sense of power being able to go to work in an Italian resaturant and bar and only eat tangerines on my shift while everyone else is eating pizza and getting drunk.

One man–a diabetic–comes in every night and drinks two or three bourbons while chowing down on minestrone, a caesar salad, a basket of garlic bread, a heaping plate of chicken alfredo, and some cheesecake. All while lamenting how cursed he is to have diabetes! It feels good not to be that guy.

Healthier Every Day

I remember literally feeling like every day I woke up my health was deteriorating markedly. It really blows to be only 36 years old and huffing and puffing up a flight of stairs.

So many of the ailments people “come down with”, “contract”, or “suffer from”, are 100% avoidable. Please don’t take me as some kind of jerk who is going to insist that all sickness is self-made. I don’t think that at all. But most of the everyday “conditions” we live with are. The guy I mentioned who comes into my bar every night…he CHOOSES to be a diabetic. One month eating raw and he’d be a different person and he would NOT be a diabetic.

Another example of the health benefits of eating raw is how totally it covers all the bases. I was in the health food store the other day waiting for my fresh watermelon juice to be made. So I decided to walk around and look at the shelves. Two thirds of the stores shelves contain vitamins, powders, supplements, tonics, etc. TWO THIRDS! I had a funny reaction–literally–and started laughing out loud. It all seemed so ridiculous. None of those pills are going to fix anything. Total waste of time and money. Let alone pharmaceuticals…

Natural Weight Control

Oprah and Ricky can talk all they want about the need for heavy people to accept themselves and the evils of a society obsessed with being thin…it doesn’t change the fact that none of us want to be fat!

If you read my Fat Kid Suit story you know I grew up being a fat kid in a fat family. It sucked! You know why I think people dislike being fat the most? Because all those layers are proof that you are hiding shit and that your thoughts aren’t your own.

Have you watched the Biggest Loser? Ever see people cry that much? Even for reality TV these “losers” are shedding more tears than I thought humanly possible.

Being fat is not congruent with any kind of personal authenticity. When I’m fat I start avoiding eye contact. It’s a terrible terrible way to be and while I’m all empathy about how hard it is to make up your mind to change it, it’s 100% on you. Eating raw has helped me quickly realize that, and I no longer want to abdicate my responsibility to and for myself.

If you haven’t tried eating 100% (or at least mostly) raw yet, you may not believe me when I tell you that eating raw is NOT a diet. And I hope you know that I don’t mean that in some cheese-ball marketing sense. It simply isn’t a diet. I’ve lost a lot of weight already, and I have NEVER ONCE thought about a calorie, a carb, or wondered how many fat grams I was eating. NEVER EVER do I tell myself I shouldn’t have seconds or thirds of anything.

I pour the olive oil on THICK! I eat a whole avocado as a snack. I lick honey off of spoons. The other day I got a massive pineapple and ate the whole thing for lunch. You know those a-holes who say that drinking fruit juice is the same as drinking soda? I drank a quart of fresh pressed seasonal apples juiced into a cloudy lover of a concoction that zinged in my mouth and sweetened my soul like no other…yeah it was that good. My body SOAKED it all up into my cells which collectively broke out in song. And guess what? It wasn’t the Coke song.

Sex

Oh, NOW you’re paying attention! Yeah sex. That thing you try and squeeze in between cocktail dreardoms and buffet bellyaches. Only a very small group of fetishists find belching and food induced comas to be a turn on.

You know what’s really sexy? FRUIT! Farmer’s markets are the new sex shops. I don’t mean you have to use the fruit that way, just eat it. And then let all that stored solar stuff of life bump up against some other radiant beings overflow. In other words, sex is better the more raw foods you eat.

NO idea who this guy is, but HE'S got the right idea!

Having that youthful raw foods “glow” and lightness of being make you FEEL sexy at any age. That kind of confidence and feeling of self-worth is the only real aphrodisiac…

The Environment & Animals Everywhere Will Thank You

This one is obvious to most people. I’m not going to get all science right now. There are tons of great resources out there regarding the undeniable connection between what we eat and the environment. If anything, I’m sick of the words “green,” “sustainable,” “vegan,” and “carbon footprint.” These are becoming marketing buzz words, overused, and to me they are often elitist terms with very little real world application for the majority of the worlds population.

I wasn’t attracted to raw foods for ethical reasons. If anything I’m a borderline Nihilist who is completely A-political. But, what we do most of the time makes the largest impact in our personal lives and on the human family as a whole. Eating less meat and dairy has a far greater impact than driving a Prius does…

I’m not an “animal lover,” but the more raw foods I eat the more empathy I feel for animals, other people, and myself. Having apparently turned my hatred toward plants, I’m now regularly butchering papayas the size of infant children and braining coconuts to get at their sweet innards. You can’t please every species all of the time I guess. Besides, the other day when I drove by a small farm, the chickens waved.

My Conclusions

I’m sure there are heaps more benefits that I don’t even know about yet. I’m only just beginning with all of this. Three weeks in I’m loving the results and wanting more.

Can I do this 100% of the time? Probably not. And I don’t think that’s what matters anyways. But I can see myself mostly raw from here forward.

Your Input

What are some benefits to eating raw that you have experienced and that I failed to mention? What percentage (roughly) of your diet comes from raw foods? What do you like/dislike about the raw food movement?

PLEASE comment and join in on the discussion!

P.S.

Tomorrow I weigh myself and will post the result of week three’s weight loss. All while NOT dieting. So please check back for that and more!